Perdue sets aside nominating panel for NC judges

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Perdue sets aside nominating panel for NC judges

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Gov. Beverly Perdue has officially given herself slack in the final weeks of her administration about abiding by rules she created for making appointments to North Carolina’s appeals courts and to Superior Court.

Perdue signed an executive order Wednesday modifying her 2011 order in which she agreed she would appoint judges among candidates offered to her by a Judicial Nominating Commission she formed.

Perdue wrote Wednesday there’s not enough time to go through the commission’s formal candidate-vetting process and to fully consider those candidates’ qualifications before she leaves office in early January. Now she plans to simply consult with individual commission members about specific candidates before making her appointments.

Atop her list of vacancies will be the one opened on Dec. 17 when Supreme Court Associate Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson retires.